Refinnej, reading your first paragraph makes me think of a friend who recently shared her success with hiring a patient advocate for her chronically ill mother. It sounds like there might be some similarities in your situation. I didn't even know people who did this kind of work existed, but it sounds like it's been a godsend to them.

I don't think she'd mind if I copied her words here:

Quote:

If you ever end up in the role of having to care for a parent or older relative who habitually struggles while dealing with an onset of ill-health... I really cannot recommend professional patient advocacy enough. My Mom wasn't able to communicate with the medical staff how she felt, so she was skipping specialist appointments when she either felt like the doctor wasn't listening to her, or she felt too bad to go, or she was too embarrassed to admit that she was ill. My dad didn't know how to deal with insurance (or with my Mom), so he was going crazy. I was at my wits end because Mom kept on having medical crisis after crisis that required me flying home to deal on everyone's behalf. I was going crazy, even when I wasn't in STL: for one example, in 2011 I was pumping my dad for (highly distorted) updates on how Mom was doing and ended up diagnosing kidney failure over the phone and going crazy urging my father to take my mother to the ER (and going crazy again when they *eventually* went to the ER and INDEED her kidney function was down to 30% because of low blood volume because of low cardiac function and peripheral edema, for which she needed her medications adjusted).

Now, instead of my trying to play phone tag with everyone to ascertain how Mom is really doing... [Our patient advocate] meets my Mom at appointments and sends me non-garbled updates on her status. And [our patient advocate] is the one who makes sure that each doctor knows what the other doctor is doing so there are no treatment conflicts. And [our patient advocate] is the one who helps my father with the insurance paperwork and who politely harasses the medical office staff to get specific forms returned by specific deadlines. And [our patient advocate] is there to reassure my Mom that she can (in fact) afford her medication. And she's there to make sure that Mom feels comfortable going to the doctor, so that she buys in to her treatment, feels empowered to talk about her symptoms, and thus gets adequate care. And [our patient advocate] (pro-bono) drops my dad delightful nuggets like "I recommend you try doing something for yourself to deal with the stress of your wife's illness." And I go less crazy, because I don't have to be my family's medical advocate from 1,200 miles away. And I can call up and talk to my Mom without her feeling like I'm meddling in her life.

One of the struggles we have too is that I don't think Nate feels about his family the way I do mine. He is an only child, all his aunts and uncles and grandparents lived far away (except for a brief time in his adolescence), so I don't think he gets how great having family can be. I talk to his parents more than he does! In some ways this is great, I was able to convince him to move across the country and he is very self sufficient, it also means that he is pret selfish and sometimes can't see beyond his own wants because he has always worked hard and gotten whatever he wanted. I absolutely love where we live, it is gorgeous, I have amazing friends, there are endless opportunities for me, grey and Nate, but I would give it all up in a heartbeat to be near family and Nate definitely does not understand that.

Of course, it is considered "unfair" to his mother's completely uncontrolled dog and their cousin's uncontrolled dog, to keep them away from Leela, so either I let her walk around risk being knocked over by the dogs in the tiny house or I have to hold her on my lap and try and fend off the dogs. I don't want to go, but I don't think I'd feel okay leaving my child with her Dad in an unchildproofed house with 2 dogs running around to please people who have never come to see our child once.

I would send him alone with her. He's her father and this is his family. If he wants to spend time with them and wants her to know them, that's on him. They have been demonstrably unkind to you and I don't think you owe him much more explanation than that about why you wouldn't want to go. Anyway you could make alternative Christmas Eve plans for yourself?

I agree with this. My other suggestion would be what I've seen a lot of people do when my neighbors (who have a ton of friends with kids, and a ton of parties) have parties -- could you bring a playpen or something, and put Leela down to sleep in that when she starts getting tired?

Yup...send him and Leela to his Mom's house. Stay home and try not to worry.

We decided that we're going to drop in for a little bit. His mom is moving their celebration to 3 and we are just going to stop in to say hello - we won't be eating there or opening presents, just saying hello and meeting her cousins and her uncles and aunts and her grandma, and then going home.

I would be a nervous wreck leaving Brett alone with Leela at his mother's. Their house is like a baby deathtrap obstacle course.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Husband's gone again. I'm in a funk. V's been kinda difficult today, don't know why yet. Crying a lot and not napping well. Meanwhile I need to prep the house for houseguest and book club tomorrow, maybe do a lunch thing with some wives I've never met, do some shopping for FRG donations..so I'm keeping busy, and I've barely even started holiday shopping, but I am finding it hard wanting to do any of that. Just want to have my husband back, hole up with our little family somewhere and have a nice holiday celebration with all the other stuff tuned out.

Underways always get me in a funk. For some reason the medium length ones are the worst. If it's only 4-5 days, pssh, that's nothing, if it's a 6 month deployment you get a lot of time and space to prepare for it emotionally.. but between that? Really tough.

"Well just don't let her get to your credit card or phone. Ever notice these things don't happen to me?"

No, I know why they never happen to you. Because you never have to do things at the same time as taking care of your child. I put down my phone for a minute and its in the dog bowl. Your phone rings, you put down the kid and go focus on your life.

I had to pay a bill by phone and in the few minutes when my credit card was out, it has inexplicably gone missing. I spent the day looking for it, but no dice. Yes, I should have put it back into my wallet immediately but its hard to do that when your kid needs something right that minute. UGH.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

He was a total sweetie and got me a new phone after L drowned the last one and looked everywhere for my credit card. I just feel bad about losing both of them in the space of a week and having him think its me being careless, when really when watching a toddler, I just don't have the headspace for managing myself the same way. I put my phone down for a second and its gone - the drowning happened so fast. I went to get some tea, and turned around and she was holding it under.

We have insurance so its $100 for a new phone not $500, but still. $100 is $100.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

My friend bought a shiny new iPhone. That very same day it had rained, and he bent down to help an earthworm that was stuck in a puddle. As he bent over, his new phone fell into the puddle and was completely bricked. (The earthworm was saved though!)

"Well just don't let her get to your credit card or phone. Ever notice these things don't happen to me?" .

this was famous last words a year or so ago... from my spouse.... who then, the NEXT DAY, managed to drop my Alien Registration Card on the ground, and the dog got it and has chewed it into a lunar landscape that costs $500 to replace [and i have thus far managed to escape replacement by using other ID...]so maybe karma's got something lined up for him. <evil grin>

A very minor vent :) Of all the things you have to get our kid hooked on, peanuts? They are pretty much the perfect choking size.

Apparently he's been giving her pieces, so now she is following me around the house waving a bag of them begging for them. Its cute, until she gets the bag open and eats an unbroken one. I am throwing the peanuts out once she is distracted.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I get so frustrated about Brett basically thinking its up to me to keep our house safe on my own. He left a fragile piece of glass in the sink to soak and I didn't realize it was still in there, so it breaks all over the kitchen and L cuts her foot. I am upset because (1) why leave something very breakable in the sink to soak and (2) I know he's going to make this my fault.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Thanks! He was actually really sweet about it. It sucked because I was sure she hadn't gotten cut, and so I was cleaning up and she kept screaming and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't distract her, and then I saw all this blood all over the floor. I cleaned her off, comforted her and put a bandaid on it, but it pretty much messed with my head, so he came home to help me not feel overwhelmed. He cleaned the kitchen again, because I asked him to, to make sure I didn't miss a chunk. And then he took her so I could have a nice bath. And for the first time ever, she insisted on coming to join me, so we had a fun family bath and now she is asleep.

Babies sure bleed a lot.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

The doctor who glued Violet back together said that all that bleeding helped clean out the wound, which made me feel (ever so slightly) better about her forehead gash incident.. Remember how hard it was to get blood out of their feet during the jaundice tests?

poor leela!! those first injuries are so heart-rending. [says the mama who passed out watching 12-yo FC getting blood drawn last year...... it doesn't get any better!]glad it worked out well. hugs mama!

Wen things aren't great in nates life for whatever reason he ends up being a jerk to me. Last night I went out with jordanpattern. I have only recently started going out at night again. Anyway, during the day yesterday Grey broke some glass, I swept up a bunch, but you know how glass is. I get home and Nate tells me that grey got glass in his foot and Nate says he isn't mad, but he is acting mad. Then he goes onto say he couldn't find the glass in greys foot, or a cut or anything, but grey was acting like his foot hurt. What the hell. Then he says something about how sometimes I am a good mom and sometimes I am a bad mom. He apologized a bunch after, but what the hell. You weren't paying attention to grey and he hurt himself and I am to blame because I was not there. Awesome.

He keeps apologizing and I know he feels really bad. He did have a really bad week at work, but that doesn't excuse him taking out his anger on me. I think I am going to tell him he has to draw me an apology because making adults who are not artists to draw is always fun!

I really don't think I should be talking about this, but I need to. My husband and I are starting down the path of becoming more of a partnership rather than a marriage. I know some people here know this, but my partner is transgender, and it's becoming more apparant that our attraction is becoming more of a friendship than something physical. I really don't know where we're going from here, but our interests in keeping Ezra happy and healthy are paramount. We want him to grow up in an environment where he can see that all sorts of different types of families exist, and that's ok.This is so hard for me to write. I'd love some support, advice, hugs, if anyone is interested in PMing, I'd love to talk more (we're really keeping it hushed right now, so I can't talk to anyone IRL.)

*hugs* Flava, that's really tough. Are you in a support group for partners of transfolk or straight spouse network or something? That's quite a bomb to drop into a marriage. This is probably the sort of thing that a really good, open-minded and ideally familiar with trans issues, marriage counselor could help a lot with...because it sounds like what you and your partner may need is a roadmap out while doing right by Ezra. That's one of the few things that I've heard marriage counselors are actually good at - helping people split ways amicably.

While your situation is a little more unique because of the gender issues, you'd hardly be the first couple that found itself changing from a romantic to a friendship connection over time.

Sending you tons and tons of good thoughts flava. I hope you can find resources to support you in shaping the transition in a way that works for all three of you. You're absolutely lovely, and it seems like you and Nate are both devoted co-parents, so you are in a better position than so many other people who find the terms of their partnership shifting.

Many hugs <3

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.